Monthly Archives: June 2017

This was where she lived. Her mind she saw as a purple martin colony house. Roof, floors and walls served to divide, to protect her feelings from stormy people, and predators. The doors connected her to the open world.

If life could be lived fearlessly, such a house would be redundant. She listened. Transition. Baby animals had their early-summer, hungry cries going. Wind teased the pines, their needles soft like smoke. A crow sat and held the topmost branch, whether for watching, or for food, she didn’t know.

A pale-yellow butterfly, a swallowtail, with black stripes and borders, but missing its tails, drank from scarlet lilies by the east fence. That bright but deep red, with a hint of persimmon, she hadn’t found a name for that color, yet.

The sage blooms were almost done. That baby animal cry came again.

“Watching,” said the crow.

A mate answered, “Watching, too.”

They talked back and forth.

Were they conversing, or were they saying, “That woman’s in the field again.”?

Then, some bird who chuckles. Some chirping, as you’d expect. Babies calling high but small. A thrush-type bird with a complicated song, delivered in couplets, sounding like a performance by twenty different birds in succession. And now a chorus rises. Have they gotten used to her, or is it their crepuscular habit? Whistles. And woodpecker hammers.

Sugar ants on the table: avoid the binoculars, please.

A small, dark shadow, emitting a low-pitched hum, five feet from her, at face height, looking at her, watching her surprise. Zooms off, with a long, low, “Z-z-z-z-z.” A first hummingbird.

Crow closer now, sending his call down into the yard, in her direction. Does he approve her stillness, appreciate her surprise? Is he a guardian?

Woods so full of birdsong and wind that the creek is almost inaudible. She hears it when she turns away.

The hollow where a rabbit lay last night. She hopes they’ll come again.